That April had listened enough to know what he wanted, then actually forgiven him—he firmly intended to get the skinny on that later—and decided to enact it made Ben’s previously morose heart swell equally as rapidly as an important organ south of his navel.
She braced both hands on either side of his face, searched his eyes, letting him see the need, the desire, the regret, but most importantly, the want.
She wanted him.
His throat tightened, forcing him to swallow. She waited, making sure that he understood, then slowly lowered her lips and kissed his lids, his cheeks, the side of his neck, then finally his mouth. Slowly at first, tentatively and reverently, then passion flared and she deepened the kiss, moving further into seduction mode. She was above him, dominating him, forcing him to let her take the lead. It terrified and thrilled him, making him shake and burn.
She worked her way back down his body once more, painting a deliberate path down his belly, over his navel. She took him in hand, slid her fingers up and down, gazed at his dick as though it was the tastiest thing she’d ever seen, then bent her head, and, with her gaze connected to his, she took all of him into her mouth.
He’d been wrong, Ben decided. That was the most erotic thing he’d ever seen. A guttural growl tore from his throat and his thighs went rigid.
April’s eyes finally fluttered shut, a look of sublime satisfaction on her face, and she sucked and licked, nibbled and stroked until his coming in her mouth was going to be a foregone conclusion if she didn’t stop soon. He could feel the climax building, the impending orgasm a loaded bullet ready to shoot down the barrel of a gun.
She mewled around him, made happy noises of pleasure that vibrated against his throbbing dick. “I love the way you feel in my mouth,” she said, her voice a sleepy-sounding purr. “Soft, hard and salty.”
Her hand cupped his balls, dallied languidly while she increased the hungry slip and slide of her mouth.
“April,” he growled, “unless you want this to be over in a few seconds, babe, you’re going to have to stop.”
She sucked him harder, her lips curling into a smile around his dick. “Now that would be a pity. Because I’m not nearly finished with you yet.”
She licked a pearl of desire from his engorged head, then licked her lips. “You’d said that you’d been netted, filleted, battered and fried,” she told him, her eyes gleaming with wicked humor. “Now you’ve been eaten.”
He chuckled, he couldn’t help himself. Here he was about to detonate like a bomb and she had the presence of mind to crack a joke. Something was wrong with this picture.
She scaled his body once more and abruptly straddled him, her weeping flesh settling firmly onto his rod.
Ben abruptly stopped laughing.
Her eyes rolled back in her head and she winced with pleasure at the intimate connection. “Do you know how many times I’ve thought about this?” she asked him.
She rocked against him, purposely dragging her wet folds over him, coating him with her warmth.
“How many times I’ve lain in my bed and thought about having you in this very position. Beneath me. At my mercy.”
He shook his head, mesmerized.
“Hundreds, thousands probably. See,” she said, “the thing is, I’ve been in love with you since I was sixteen.”
She lifted her hips, guided him to her center, then impaled herself on him. Ben locked his jaw, felt the breath rush out of his lungs.
“And I’m still in love with you.”
He flexed beneath her, anchoring his hands on her hips, and winced as she started to ride him. Up down, up down, a soft undulation, a promise, a prayer.
She loved him.
He bent forward and captured her nipple through the fabric, felt a corresponding clench around his dick and sucked harder. A maelstrom of feeling commenced in his body. His heart ached, his dick throbbed and he was suddenly hit with the extremely unusual urge to scream. Or weep. He didn’t know.
She loved him.
She braced her hands upon his chest, rode him harder, her lush breasts jiggling as she absorbed the force of his thrusts. He could feel her clamping against him as though reluctant to let him leave, but just as anxious for the return. She bit her lip and her eyes fluttered shut. Her head lolled to the side, her neck seemingly too weak to support it any longer. Her breath came in little jagged puffs and a fine sheen of sweat had broken out on her forehead.
She was beautiful, a sexual goddess, his fantasy come to life. She was everything. His world. His past. His future…
And she loved him.
Without warning, he came hard, felt the orgasm tear from his loins and blast into her. His lips peeled back from his teeth, his neck bowed off the bed and a long keening groan issued from his throat.
Three seconds later, April joined him there. She bent forward, locked her legs and pumped frantically against him, pushing his dick against her G-spot, dragging her clit along his skin.
Suddenly she tensed, her mouth opened in a silent wail and she shuddered violently atop him. He felt her feminine muscles close around him, causing even more spasms of pleasure to issue out of his loins.
With a soft supplicating sigh that whispered around his heart, April collapsed on top of him, her hair spilling over his chest, the gown bunching beneath her.
Ben ran his hands over her rump, drawing figure eights up her back. “I love you, too,” he said simply. “It’s always been you, April.”
She leaned up and her gaze searched his. “I’m sorry for not listening to you today. I should have. You were trying to tell me and I—”
Ben shook his head. “Forget it. I should have told you. I just—”
“Couldn’t,” she finished. “I know. I don’t blame you. It wasn’t your place. It was my dad’s.” She smiled softly. “I went and talked to him today,” she said.
Ben smiled. “You did?”
“Yeah, after you left. I couldn’t wait until six. I had too many questions.”
That was certainly understandable, Ben thought. He’d had a decade to deal with the idea of their fathers being lovers. She’d had less than twelve hours. “And was everything answered to your satisfaction?”
“Yes.” She bit her lip, hesitated. “Why didn’t you ever tell anybody what my mother had said to you, Ben? You know she’s a vindictive bitch.”
“I asked my mother about it and she left,” he said, shrugging in an offhand manner that in no way matched the way he felt. “I didn’t want to risk it.”
Her gaze softened, misted. “Oh, Ben. Your dad loves you. Surely you know that?”
He did now. He nodded, finding it too difficult to speak.
She smiled down at him. “You’re pretty damned lovable.”
His heart did another little flip and he grinned at her. “So are you.” His gaze traced the wonderfully familiar curves of her face. “Last night, I was thinking about our rules and I think we need to amend one of them.”
She arched a brow. “Oh? Which one?”
“I think we need to do away with Rule Number Two completely.”
She nodded, her green eyes twinkling. “I am in total agreement with you. Rule Number Two sucked.”
“And I’d like to propose a new one.” His belly quivered with nerves.
“And what would that one be?”
Ben reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear. “One of the till-death-do-us-part variety.”
A slow dawning smile eased wonderingly across her lips and her eyes misted again. “I’m in total agreement with that one, as well.”
“Will you marry me?”
She sank her teeth into her bottom lip and nodded. Tears sparkled on her lashes. “Definitely.”
“And we’ll live at your house,” he said, willing to give up his own in order to make her happy. He’d give up everything to make her happy. Besides, he’d felt the magic there. They’d make a beautiful life together in that house, making love and raising babies.
A hal
f laugh, half cry rushed past her lips. “Oh, Ben.”
“So long as we can play the hunter and prey game,” he stipulated. “That was pretty damned fun.”
She giggled, bent forward and kissed him softly. And, for some reason, he was reminded of that first kiss, their first commingled breath, the one that had sealed this very end all those years ago.
“No more playing in the coat closet for you,” he said playfully.
She chuckled, her breasts vibrating against his ever expanding chest. “And no more whispering for you.” She arched an imperious brow. “I’ve got a penis voodoo doll and I’m not afraid to use it.”
Epilogue
“YOU KNOW, I’M REALLY starting to get pissed off,” Frankie said. “I get engaged and you get married.”
April grinned. “There’s the pastor,” she told her friend, gesturing toward the portly man-of-the-church who’d just married them. “Do something about it.”
Frankie shook her dark head. “Nah, we’re waiting. We’ve still got lots of plans to make.”
“See,” April told her. “That’s where you messed up. You should have never agreed to let him make any plans. Straight men don’t know how to plan a wedding.”
“Well, not everybody can have the fab gay duo in their corner,” Frankie said with a fond smile as she stared across the reception room at April’s dad and Davy.
There was that, April thought. The two of them had been in cake-and-lace heaven since she and Ben had announced their engagement. They had insisted on planning the wedding. Since that freed her and Ben up to make the most out of Rules One and Three, she didn’t mind.
Just last night she’d been the hunter and he’d been the prey. Talk about thrilling stuff, April thought, scanning the crowded room for her sexy new husband. She spotted him in the corner talking with Ross and Tate, and from the looks of things they were—vainly—trying to give her new hubby the proper instruction for the care and feeding of a Chick In Charge.
Let’em try, April thought. She and Ben had their own system and she figured as long as neither one of them ever wore underwear, they’d do just fine.
Looking slightly nauseated but beautiful all the same, Zora strolled up. “Please don’t have stargazer lilies at your wedding, Frankie.”
April winced. “Sorry. Are they making you ill?”
“Positively wretched. But not to worry. According to my husband, I should stop being affected by scents within the month.”
Frankie smiled, crossed her arms over her chest. “He’s taking his daddy duties seriously, isn’t he?”
“You know Tate,” Zora said, gazing fondly at her husband. “He doesn’t do anything in half measures.”
Frankie snorted. “It would serve him right if this baby was a girl.”
Zora chuckled. “Believe me, that has been discussed at length.”
Carrie picked through the crowd and gave April a warm hug. “Congratulations, April. I’m so happy for you.” She looked at Zora. “What’s been discussed at length?” she asked, jumping into the conversation.
“The poetic justice of my husband dealing with a daughter.”
Carrie chuckled knowingly. “Oh, yeah. That would be perfect.”
“We’ll see, I guess,” Zora said.
“When’s your ultrasound?” Frankie asked.
“In a couple of months.”
“Are you going to find out the sex of the baby?” April asked.
She knew lots of parents did, but she wasn’t so certain she’d want to when she and Ben started a family. Which, according to him, would be soon. He’d told her that he was looking forward to inseminating the hell out of her as quickly as possible. The fathers were anxious for grandbabies, and truthfully, she was feeling distinctly envious of Zora at the moment.
Zora shook her head. “No, I don’t think so.”
“You’ll change your mind,” Frankie predicted. “You know how you are. You’ll want to decorate the nursery and buy clothes and you’ll have to know.”
While that was an accurate assessment of Zora’s Type-A character, marriage had mellowed her some. “We’ll see,” her friend said. She glanced at Carrie. “How are things down at the set?”
“All right, I guess,” Carrie said, somewhat evasively. “The powers that be want to pair me up with Philip Mallory—”
“That insufferable Brit with the nice ass?” Frankie interrupted.
Carrie nodded. “One and the same.”
“For what?” April asked.
“Some sort of special. I don’t have any specifics on it right now.”
“Keep us posted,” Frankie said. She frowned thoughtfully. “I’ve always had a thing for a British accent. Very sexy.”
Carrie let go a small breath, but didn’t comment, which piqued April’s interest. Hmm, she wondered. Was there some cookin’ going on after the show? Evidently Zora had picked up on Carrie’s odd behavior, as well, and she and April shared a look.
Very interesting, April thought.
A telltale buzz from her cell phone started against her thigh beneath her garter and a shot of excitement bolted through her. She’d been waiting for this message. “Form a circle around me,” she said impatiently. “Hurry. Quick. Move, move, move.”
Bewildered, her friends huddled around her as she fumbled with her dress.
“What the hell are you—” Frankie inhaled sharply. “You’re wearing your cell phone beneath your dress? Have you lost your mind?”
April peered at the display and grinned. Nope. Just her heart.
Coat closet. Now.
She gathered her dress and bolted away from them. “Gotta go,” she called over her shoulder. “My honeymoon awaits.”
“B-but the car is that way,” Carrie told her, looking hopelessly confused.
But her groom was this way, April thought. Waiting for her. With no underwear on.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-5752-2
GETTING IT RIGHT!
Copyright © 2005 by Rhonda Nelson.
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Getting It Right! Page 15
